Asuka

Asuka-kyō served as Japan's imperial capital multiple times during the Asuka period (roughly 538–710 CE) and is regarded as the cradle of the early Japanese state — today it survives as a small rural village in Nara Prefecture, about 25 kilometres south of Nara city. It was here that Prince Regent Shōtoku Taishi issued Japan's Seventeen-Article Constitution in 604, one of the first systematic attempts to codify governance in the archipelago. The landscape is dotted with enigmatic stone monuments whose purpose remains debated, grand burial mounds such as the Ishibutai Kofun, and Asuka-dera, Japan's oldest continuously functioning Buddhist temple. Cycling through the rice paddies and gentle hills today, visitors encounter centuries-old stone carvings that have yet to yield a definitive explanation.